Gaining Social Kred; Watch Out Klout!

Watch out Klout — there is a new social influence rating system in town — and it goes by the name of “Kred.”

Kred, a social scoring system that measures a user’s influence and outreach, was launched today by social analytics company PeopleBrowsr. Kred provides its users with a complete score based on their influence and outreach within affinity-based communities.

"Kred is built on the fundamental belief that we are all influential somewhere," says PeopleBrowsr CEO Jodee Rich. "Kred asserts the importance of trust and sharing in human relationships. By allowing individuals to be recognized as influential about their passions, Kred shifts the attention on social networks from celebrities back to the true heart of human relationships — connections with trusted friends and subject matter experts."

Kred calculates the dual scores of influence and outreach by analyzing a person’s ability to inspire action, as well as monitoring the level of user's interactions with others. Influence metrics include replies, retweets, likes and new followers; while outreach metrics include conversation initiations, interactions and spread of content.

Additionally, Kred scores emphasize the importance of close networks with similar types of people by offering scores for communities that are formed around interests. Engaged community members will have a higher score than an unengaged community member, regardless of the number of followers each member has.

Kred also recognizes influence from the offline world, by allowing users to add real life recognition and honors to their scores. Examples of offline influence include athletic achievements and club memberships. However, it is not clear how Kred can confirm these offline achievements.

The service is free but currently sign-ups have to be processed, and it could take up to seven days to receive an invitation. Furthermore, invitations won’t start being sent out until October 6.